Ankabut, the United Arab Emirates' Advanced National Research and Education Network (NREN) has launched Microsoft Azure Stack cloud services in collaboration with Huawei.

The partnership will allow Ankabut to offer its partner institutions in the UAE's education sector, to utilise Microsoft Azure Stack cloud solutions, which enable them to deploy applications in a hybrid model while keeping their data in the UAE.

This will be the first implementation of Microsoft's Azure Stack solution in GCC and the ME Region.

Through this partnership, Ankabut aims to take the education infrastructure in the UAE to the next level of innovation and intelligibility by implementing the platform that will offer educational institutes cloud-paced innovation and computing management simplicity, cost optimization, higher quality, huge potentials and capabilities, in addition to more reliability and added value services.

Ankabut is the United Arab Emirates' Advanced National Research and Education Network (NREN) offering academic institutions connectivity to other education networks around the world; it's an initiative of Khalifa University. In addition to connecting universities, Ankabut can connect schools and public institutions together across the UAE with an effective cost model.

Azure Stack is offered as an integrated hardware and software system, Ankabut will have the flexibility and control it needs to support its requirements, along with the ability to innovate from the cloud. Azure Stack integrated systems ranges in different sizes from 4-12 nodes and are jointly supported by the hardware partner and Microsoft.

Fahem Al Nuaimi, Ankabut CEO, commented: "Ankabut has partnered with the best infrastructure provider Huawei to deliver the best solutions. We are the first to be implementing Azure Stack in the UAE and the region, which will enable our partners to host their data locally, as well as more cost effectively, with a great quality of service.

"With Ankabut Azure, there is no need any more to develop new clouds for educational institutions in UAE and the region. Ankabut Azure Stack will provide this service with high level of reliability and quality, and less complexity and cost," Dr Fahem added.

Lishi, Huawei UAE CEO said: "Ankabut has proved to be a forerunner in taking advantage of the most advanced ICT solutions to improve the academic and educations institutions networks and lead a successful journey so far in this field. We are proud to be the solution providers for Ankabut and believe this partnership will play a key role in supporting the national targets and vision of UAE to create a knowledge-based, diversified economy, through improving the education infrastructure. The Azure solution will provide all Azure Stack marketplace as well as Azure marketplace as a connected model, eliminating the need to develop new clouds for educational institutions in UAE, hence strengthening the UAE's position as a regional leader in educational services."